


Flowers in Your Footsteps (The Renewal Remix)

by trascendenza



Category: Being Human
Genre: Female Protagonist, Gen, Multiracial Character, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-15
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie's ready for a change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers in Your Footsteps (The Renewal Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Space_Dementia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Space_Dementia/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dorsalis Pedis](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/736) by razycrandomgirl. 



Absence makes the heart grow fonder, so they say, and what she wouldn't give for a bit of it right about now. She remembers what she was thinking that morning as she'd mulled over the options, the favourite black blouse and the asymmetrical pink skirt, how she'd felt the slight bite of cold in the air and settled on something more practical.

Now she looks at herself and feels _drab_, like she could just fade into the walls. She doesn't feel things like she used to -- though when people started to see her again, she could have sworn she'd felt prickles under her skin -- but she likes the idea of the sun on her arms again.

"Why don't you just wear something over it?" George says when she complains to him about it, like she hadn't thought it, like she hadn't worn sheets to walk around the house before they'd moved in just for the fun of it.

"It wouldn't be the same," she tells him, and swings around one of the loose ends of her jumper in the air. "I would still know this is all there, underneath. I want it _gone._"

"What, you want to go round naked?" he says, one eye narrowing in confusion and making his face look lopsided.

"Don't be stupid," she says, smacking him on the shoulder with a laugh. "I just want something new, that's all. Something better."

George's lips pucker. "I'm not going to have to go shopping with you, am I?"

She smiles indulgently at him, patting his cheek. "You're adorable."

*

She looks through racks and racks, fingering fabrics -- when she focuses, she can nearly feel the texture of the fabrics, though it may all just be in her head -- and clapping and calling George over every time she finds something especially wonderful. He looks at her with longsuffering puppydog eyes and a jutting-out lower lip, but she sees how he starts trying things on when he thinks she's not looking, puffing out his chest in front of the mirrors.

Midway through the hour an older woman starts hovering over her. She's massive and beautiful, with a wide corona of dark hair and a form-fitting dark blue dress that catches all her curves. Her lipstick is bright red, a confident sort of shade that only certain people can pull off.

"Need any help, dear?" she says, and starts thumbing through the dresses in the next rack over.

"Oh, no, thank you," Annie says, smiling politely and starting to move away, because it's not as if she has any money, so the woman would be best off trying to help a real customer.

"Wait," the woman says, and something in her voice stops Annie in her tracks. She turns around slowly the find the woman holding up a bright yellow dress, cut to a bias and made out of light, layered fabric that looks like it would ruffle in the wind.

"Oh," Annie says, one of her hands going to the base of her neck.

"Give it a try," the woman says, holding it out.

"Oh, I couldn't --"

"There's a mirror right here," the woman says, as if she already knew what Annie was going to say next. "You can slip it on just over what you're wearing now."

Annie takes the dress and holds it for a moment, looking at it. "You really think it would fit?"

The woman's hand comes to rest between Annie's shoulder blades, steering her towards the mirror. "Go on."

Annie looks over at George, who's currently modeling a hideous purple thing across the room and smiles to herself, thinking _why not?_ She opens up the dress at the bottom and slides it over her head and, bafflingly, it slips right over her clothes as if they aren't there at all. At the edges of her perception, if she doesn't think about it too much, she can almost feel the softness of it as it molds itself to her.

"Gorgeous," the woman says, clasping her hands with a wide and approving smile lighting up her face, and Annie can't help but agree, even with her grey bits still showing under the yellow, it fits her like it was made for her. She never would have worn something like this back then; it's far too flashy, too loud.

"Oh, Annie," George says, appearing at her left, a beret tilted to the side on his head and a garish fuchsia-and-black scarf wound around his neck. "That's beautiful."

"You really think so?" she says, and does a little twirl, a laugh bubbling up in her throat.

He grins, nodding. "Are you going to get it?"

And then the bubble bursts, because when she looks down, her arms are still covered in grey sleeves, and even if this were the most beautiful dress in the world it wouldn't change what's underneath.

She exhales, shaking her head. "No. I... I can't."

"That's all right," the woman says, putting an arm around Annie's shoulders. Annie looks up at her; the woman's brown eyes are kind. "Do you know what I do when I want to find something new?"

Annie shakes her head, feeling like a little girl looking up at her mother.

"I let it come to me," the woman says, and gives Annie's shoulders one last squeeze before walking off. Annie and George watch her go.

"Mysterious," he comments.

Annie stares for a second more before shaking herself, and turning to George, tugging on the scarf and teasing him about how he's going to get them kicked out by the fashion police if he keeps this up.

*

Annie stands in front of the mirror in her room and it couldn't be more of a diametrically-opposed experience to the store. She feels tired, so very, very tired. She's been here for what feels like hours, trying everything she can think of. She's concentrated, concentrated until it felt like her head was going to explode and _nothing_; she's tried ripping them off, but even using all of her strength they're stuck to her skin like some awful glue; she's tried to re-materialize and picture herself in something new, fruitlessly.

She's not stupid. She knows it's not just the clothes. She knows it's everything, that she started feeling trapped the day she woke up here and that it's only been building since then, that she can't leave the place she _died_, that she has nothing to _do_ with herself other than wander around and try not to evaporate into invisibility again.

But in this moment it feels enormous, like if she can't get past this one thing, what _can_ she get past, and she can't stop remembering what it felt like to fall down those stairs, what it felt like to hear the sound of her own skull cracking open, and how bloody _stupid_ she felt when she realized she'd been mooning over her _killer_, how it had rushed through her entire body like a wave of heat a long time stoked to burning, and here she is now and if she can't have this _one thing_ she'll, she'll --

She doesn't realize what's happened until she blinks to see glass shards scattered around her feet, when she pulls back her fist to find it clenched. She's taking in heaving breaths, and if her heart still beat, she knows it would be pounding in her ears.

She recognizes the heat that's flooding through her. She unclenches her fist and smiles. The difference is that, this time, it feels good.

*

"Annie?" Mitchell calls, and she turns in the street. He's approaching from the other direction, likely coming home from work. He's stopped halfway through a step, like a video on pause. His sunglasses have been pushed up to his hairline and his eyebrows are halfway up his forehead, lips slightly parted.

"Mitchell," she says, smiling warmly. Her new shoes flap as she walks.

"Daisies?" he says, looking down at her feet.

"What?" She wiggles her toes in the open sandals, the petals of the bright yellow daisies moving as she does so. Her toenails are as bright red as the saleswoman's lipstick. "They're my favourite."

"No, I, no -- they're great, really, they are. I'm just --" He looks back up at her face, a huge, organic smile spreading across his. "You've changed."

"Oh, this old thing?" she says, and runs her hands down the side of the sleeveless green dress. It's a bold, strong colour; she feels like a leaf in the sun. There's a brown, skinny belt around her waist that's secured with a silver buckle, and the cut flares out around her knees, the hem moving with the light breeze.

"It suits you," he says, and he sounds uncharacteristically heartfelt. "It really suits you."

"I thought I'd try something new," she says, and she laughs, just because. She holds out her arm. "Want to join me? I'm off for a walk."

He slips his arm through hers, the white of his teeth flashing. "Love to."

The skin of his hand feels warm and delicately textured in hers, like she could discern the complexities of his fingerprints if she wanted to. She squeezes his hand and they start walking, no particular destination in mind.


End file.
